Mindful Meditation: 30 Days Uniting with the Heart of God

By Jeanie Winebarger

UNLOCK YOUR HIDDEN POWER POTENTIAL IN 30-DAYS!

 

     Do you often wake up in a panic knowing you can't get it all done?

     Do you sometimes feel tossed around in a wild ocean of emotion and personal history?

     Do your attempts to please others ofte

• Language: English
• Publisher: Worldwide Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781684115921

Jeanie Winebarger

Jeanie Winebarger is a business woman who has worked in the healthcare industry for many years as a Speech-Language Pathologist. She enjoys teaching and helping others successfully navigate their life journey. She founded her own natural skincare line, Well Within, and enjoys sharing her healthy living ideas with others.

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Acknowledgments

I want to thank my husband, Don, for supporting me in my journey to help others. He has allowed me to spend countless hours away from him as I wrote and rewrote. He encouraged me each step and graciously gave me feedback on content.

My sister-in-law Wanda Counts, spent time with me in the editing and rewriting process.  My cousin Sylvia Gunter, who is an author and publisher, encouraged me and gave me her opinions based on her own experiences.

My publisher, Eddie Smith, author and speaker, stood quietly in the background. He gently and gingerly led me toward a better-finished product, yet never interfered with my vision and content. He allowed me to be me.

I am also thankful for you, Dear Reader, for daring to take this challenge. I know God speaks and believe He is whispering your name right now.

Introduction

Everyone today is searching for peace.  Our hearts are unsettled.  Our bodies are in constant motion, pretending we can meet every demand that is screaming simultaneously from every direction.  Moment to moment our mind is swept away with another thought like the grains of sand tossed about by the waves on a stormy beach.  Inertia sets in.  A body in motion tends to stay in motion.  We can't stop the madness.  We are afraid that if we rein in our runaway activity, we will become like train cars on a track that hit a wall—derailed and destroyed. 

We vow not to stop.  If we do, we will have to feel the pain of the past, the loneliness of the present, and the dread of the future.  We will have to look at who we are, seeing our naked reflection staring back at us from too many memories and people of our past.  We don't want to hear those stories echo through the canyon of caustic events in our personal history.

Stop the madness!  I want to get off this futile Ferris wheel.  I don't know who I am.  I am drowning in a sea of activity.  If I quit, I may get run over by the cacophony of current events that define my life.  I won't be able to keep up, which spells failure in anyone's life dictionary.  What if I get run over by failure or deceit?  What if I see myself for the first time and don't like what I see?

Despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary, people still believe that regular religious activities can assuage their inner turmoil and bring them lasting relief.  Martin Luther rose up in the early 16th century admonishing the church faithful to go directly to God for communion, wisdom, and peace.  The Apostle Paul urged the early Christians to be reconciled to God, to co-exist in harmony with Him.

But we continue, tossed about by every thought, some from without, yet still more from within.  The latest image pushes us up the hill of the roller coaster.  But when we get to the top, another point of view carries us down so fast that we feel out of control.  Then up we go again, carried along on a wild ride until we reach the end, exhausted and barren.  The fear still looms, but the thrill is gone.  We thought we were going somewhere, but alas, in the end, we just hop off the ride with our hope hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin.  We are empty again, searching for another rush.

Once upon a time, I was on that ride.  I came from a home that raged with dysfunction.  It was easy to see and define the problems on the surface.  But the inner turmoil was elusive and hard to pin down.  Chaos ruled my heart, although I carried an exterior posture of control.  Any peace I possessed was temporary.  One day when I was in college, my dad asked, Jean, what is your favorite word?  My Dad had a way of pulling things out of others by the questions he asked— thoughts and emotions that had not yet made landfall.  He was bored with idle chit-chat.  He wanted to engage intentionally with others, beyond the surface level.  I replied, Equanimity.  That word just popped out of nowhere.  I had recently come across that word in one of my college courses. 

Jean, what does that mean? He asked.  He had a great command of words, so he may have known the answer, but he was looking into my heart.  I explained that it meant a mental calmness and balance deep on the inside—managing life with peace and composure that comes from deep within, come what may.  The word comes from the Latin—aequus meaning level or equal and animus meaning soul or mind.  When I put those Latin words together, I came up with peace, inner control, even-mindedness in the face of chaos, unable to be thrown off balance. 

At once I wrote that word down on an obscure piece of paper and still have it tucked away like a special treasure.  I have never forgotten that moment with my Dad or that word.